Superstar advocacy

The Global Health Initiative lists the centrality of women and girls in its agenda as one of its guiding principles. President Obama and Secretary Hillary Clinton have repeatedly asserted that an important focus should be placed on the rights on women. The recently concluded MDG Summit talked expansively about the need to put the rights of women and girls at the center of the development agenda. All of these are the right noises. Yet, I believe, these noises are being made in places that are so high up in the stratosphere that they fail to impact the very people for whom these noises are made- the girl in India, the pregnant woman in South Africa. The noises that people are hearing there are, in fact, very disturbing.

I had the opportunity-if one may call it that- to watch the Bollywood film Dabbang, starring Salman Khan. For those who don’t know Salman Khan (which planet have you been hiding on?), he is arguably the biggest, most bankable star in the Indian movie industry. His legions of fans and the instant recognition and credibility he brings to his films make him an important person in the cultural landscape of India. His film Dabbang broke box office records, and it portrays him as a police officer fighting against a corrupt system, while somehow mired in it (Bollywood logic, don’t look at me!). During the course of his exploits – and there are many – he settles his desires on a stereotypical village girl, complete with the beautiful face, deferential attitude and abusive father. He, of course, has to rescue her from the misery that is her life. But first, he has to win her heart. He does so by literally eve-teasing her and harassing her to the extent that he gets her to come to the police station by leveling false charges against her drunken father. Of course, the film does this to try to be funny, although I hardly laughed. My complaint, however, isn’t against bad cinema; it’s against how this film – and others – depict women.

Primarily, it shows the woman as somebody to be saved, somebody who does not have the power or control over her own life that she needs a man to come out and rescue her. While this may reflect reality in many Indian homes where women are afraid to stand up for their rights, all the film does is perpetuate this cycle of oppression. More disturbing though, is Salman’s methods to woo his woman. Salman is a role model to many in India; people look up to him and imitate his mannerisms and actions. His celebrity burdens him with great responsibility. An impressionable youth sitting in a cinema house in India watches Dabbang, and thinks, “I want to be just like him. If Salman harasses a girl he likes, it can’t be wrong. Maybe I should try that on the ‘object’ of my fancy too.” The outcome is all too apparent to somebody who has lived for an extended period of time in India, especially in the unruly north. The worst part is, this phenomenon of legitimizing the suppression of women’s right to a decent life isn’t limited to Dabbang. I remember having been disturbed over and over by Bollywood with so many of the films I’ve seen. The objectification and demeaning of women is simply disgusting.

No matter how many syllables the international community packs into words like advocacy, the sad fact is that, on the ground, those who should be the real advocates of women’s rights, are exactly the opposite- the purveyors of a bankrupt culture that puts women in second place. Whether this is in India, or in South Africa, where the polygamist President Jacob Zuma gets away with rape by claiming that his culture demanded that he should not leave an aroused woman “unsatisfied”, the noises on the ground are all the wrong ones. No matter how many meeting are held at the UN Plaza, and no matter how loudly Bono croons, people’s and partner government’s attitudes will remain calcified unless the thought leaders within local communities and cultures show a sensitivity and maturity in dealing with these issues which are so important to the agenda of the MDGs. After all, this is a battle of sensitivities. The transgressions in Dabbang, I would proffer, seem to be the outcome of the absence of somebody sitting with a sanitizing brush and making sure that the film isn’t socially harmful. Salman Khan, I believe, is an earnest man, and the film is honest in its intentions. After all, in one fleeting scene, Salman Khan makes a very obvious reference to the pulse polio campaign in India, and the importance of vaccinating children. The development community clearly has an ally in Salman Khan. We now need to align him with each of our agendas. Advocacy couldn’t be nearly as useful at the Millennium Plaza Hotel as it could be at the office of Salman Khan, Bollywood superstar extraordinaire.